Month: April 2016

Almost immediately after the separation from my ex-wife I saw the verse in Proverbs 4:23 that I knew to be very important to my future.

“Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it.”Proverbs 4:23 (God’s Word Translation)

Over the last few years I’ve thought about this verse regularly and have seen some success over the last 6 months in actually applying this to my dating life. So as a warning — this is not a theological inductive study of this passage. It’s just a simple walk through my experience with trying to apply it to my life.

The first couple of relationships after the breakup of my marriage were very quick and emotional and full of poetry and song-writing and undying love and they were sort of a parabola of Start from nothing build to this huge emotional high and then dropped off into nothing again. I think the longest was a month or six weeks and then there was the 21 day “relationship.” I was clearly not guarding my heart here. I was learning though.

By the time the third relationship came around, I took it slower — and by that I mean I didn’t tell her of my undying love for her until a month or two into the relationship. I’ll pause for you all to finish laughing.

I’m a pretty emotional guy and I tend to have this all-in approach to relationships. This third relationship lasted much longer (almost two years), so there was success in the longevity, but I think I was still learning what it means to guard your heart. I definitely ignored a lot of red flags and warning signs from friends and even directly from my girlfriend and kept trudging on with the “love conquers all” approach. While highly romantic, the tendency with banking on love to get you through everything breaks down when only one is in love. It’s not realistic. It’s not adult. It’s a film-clip style romance that when battered by the winds of reality, breaks down.

So how am I learning to guard my heart? I am using my brain as a gate keeper. Some translations of this passage don’t even mention “heart” they just say “keep close watch on your thoughts…” or some derivative of this. I am seeing the more women I date that it is easy to choose to fall in love. If she’s beautiful to me, if she’s into me, if we can chat about anything, if she is affectionate, if she’s smart, if she treats me with respect, if she speaks kind words, if she’s fun, it’s not difficult for me to fall in love. I’m a hopeless romantic. I believe in love. I believe that I will find someone who will be a best friend, a lover and someone to grow old with me right by my side. I’m looking earnestly for that. So when a woman comes by that hits that criteria, it’s easy to lose any kind of thought process, begin the poetry writing and the wooing and fall head over heels.

What I’m seeing here in the last six months is there are a lot of women out there with which this is possible. I’m not saying I’ve been a playa over the last year or anything, just that I’ve had a lot of first dates and even several ongoing multiple date relationships that showed me that there are great women out there who are actually hitting all those criteria for me. Yet, here I am, not in a relationship. Why? I think it’s because of heart-guarding.

But guarding my heart means choosing
very deliberately the woman I want to love.
Maybe you could argue that this is taking
some of the romance out of it.
This is undoubtedly true.

I’m working hard at seeing the big picture. Two of the women I could have easily fallen for lived 45 minutes away from me. One lives on the other side of the country. Reason suggests that none of these conditions are optimal and they probably would eventually end in frustration for both of us. To be clear, both 45 min away ladies ended our dating for that reason, but I didn’t fight it or argue. I knew they were right and it was only a matter of time. Another relationship ended after 4 dates because all of the criteria above was in place but she really just wanted a homebody. I’m not that. I saw it quickly and ended it.

In addition over the last several months I’ve also met a lot of great women that have become good friends. Every one of them would make someone a great wife. They’re Godly women, they’re fun, they’re beautiful. I think some of them would probably go out on a date with me (and some of them actually have), but I think this whole Guard Your Heart thing as also evolved into a place that some would call “being picky.” I’ve actually been called that very frequently by several of my buddies. But I think I’ve shown in the past that I have not made good decisions about who I fall in love with. My ex-wife and even the 2 year relationship recently are good examples of this. I dove in too quickly, didn’t understand what I was getting into and fell hopelessly in love with a woman who wouldn’t be a good fit for me long-term. Both times.

Again — I could’ve worked really hard to make all of these relationships work. Indeed, I wrote poetry for a couple of these ladies and felt some very strong attraction and infatuation with them. But guarding my heart means choosing very deliberately the woman I want to love. Maybe you could argue that this is taking some of the romance out of it. This is undoubtedly true. Everyone dreams of being swept off their feet and immersed in a whirlwind romance with a perfect woman. I’ve had that experience. It’s intoxicating. It’s exhilarating. It’s not love though it feels like it. It’s passion. It’s infatuation. It can develop into love, or it can fall apart in a spectacular fireworks show.

(Hint: It’s most frequently the latter of those two options)

So when faced with an initial blast of feelings of passion and infatuation, what is my response? Well, for me, it’s sitting down at my blog and working through it on paper. It’s talking with a couple of key friends to get some coordinated wisdom. It’s making sure I’m not wooing at warp speed. I’m not calling her 4 times a day, I’m not talking to her for 2 hours every time we chat. All of those things feed a fast and furious passionate rush to decision and to fall in love.

Here’s the scary thought for me. I’m not sure if this is the right approach, but I do know that I’ve never lived like this before. Every other girlfriend in the past 25-30 years I’ve fallen completely in love with before I really even knew them. Including the ex-wife. So maybe I’m trying to not expect different results from the same action any longer. Maybe I am working hard to Guard My Heart now.

So here’s my challenge to you. As you are seeking out your soulmate — are you careful about who you let tug on your heartstrings? I see a lot of guys out there who are more than willing to jump at a woman who is kind to them or smiles their way or gives them any kind of attention. I don’t think that is anywhere close to guarding your heart. I definitely have been there and get why it happens, but I would caution you (and the ladies who have similar attention-desires). Guard Your Heart. Step slowly into that great ocean of love. Step carefully.

Question for Parents dealing with PAS:

In seeing this article about PAS, I’m seeking some advice from the community here. At what point do you explain to your children what PAS is, show them an article like this, and explain that this is what’s happening to them and to your relationship to them?

I have resisted doing this even thought my kids are 18 and 20 because I have felt like telling them there mom is doing this is in affect, blaming her for the the problems and sort of trying to alienate them from her as well, if that makes sense. I imagine that there response will be something conditioned from Mom like, “there’s Dad blaming Mom for all of his faults again” (ironic, because I’ve worked very hard to never do that to her, and she’s done that even in the years prior to divorce and ever since, yet I’ve heard the kids say this directly to me).

I feel like they need to know the insidious and subtle nature of how their mom is twisting their world, but then again, don’t know if they will ever be able to hear that from me. If I could just get a Psych 101 teacher to talk about this in their class at school, or a trusted friend to share this with them, I think it would be much more effective, but I don’t have anyone that could do that (that I am aware of at this point at least).

When and how have you shared the concept of PAS with your alienated kids? How did it go.

Please comment!

I have written before about the struggles that I have had in my prayer life and with God regarding the parental alienation situation with my two children, now 18 and 20. My struggle has been to continue to believe that God will change the situation. I know that he can change it and I think I believe that he eventually will change it, but I’m very resigned to the reality that it may take 20 years. This, I am beginning to realize, is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I think it’s going to take that long I’m essentially giving up.

That said, I haven’t given in completely to that thinking. I continue to email and call the kids periodically (usually a couple of times per month) — and I track the views of my email (via a program called hubspot sales — google it if you need something like this). I see through that tracking that each kid usually opens and reads these emails an average of 4-8 times. That is somewhat encouraging. I choose to believe it’s the kids that are reading this and not their mom that is repeatedly opening and viewing the emails. No way to really tell for sure, but that’s the way I choose to look at it. And I’m also putting together the website with memories and letters and notes and poetry and videos from me in it that I hope will be something they can come to and see that their Daddy really wanted a relationship with them the whole time and he was not the man their mom made him out to be.

All that said, I’ve had a hard time praying about them, I’ve struggled with talking much about it to friends and family and I’ve even gotten angrier about it over the last several months. I’m not a very angry guy, so that comes out in snide comments to friends about the ex, typically.

My church is doing what they call a “Brave” Journey this Spring where you get in a small group for 6 weekly sessions, the message is about the journey and there’s some individual work as well. It’s actually pretty cool and I’m leading a group at my house with about 10 friends, some of which are brand new friends for this particular journey. It’s a great group and as each of us embark on our journey, there’s a support team for us. Originally, I was going with a “heading” about my finances and getting out of debt. But then in yesterday’s individual work, there was a line about picking a direction for your journey that you really need God to show up for you to be able to get there. I realized my financial heading (though needed), was really something I could do on my own — and pray for and involve God, but that there was one really significant thing that I needed his help to resolve: My relationship with my kids. THAT was the real Brave Journey.

Please understand. I don’t have any idea about how to change what I am doing to improve the relationship, but I’m going to follow the process in this Journey, I’m going to aggressively pray for God to change this; I’ve asked about 12 of my closest friends and family to pray every day at noon for this; and I’m praying for God to actually help me believe this can change and will change by the end of 2016.

Some of you will appreciate the level of Miracle that this would be for me. I’m not trying to diminish the pain and struggle of the terminally ill, but it feels to me like this is akin to praying for someone in Stage 4 cancer to not die and be healed. It really does feel that drastic to me.

I’m putting this on the blog, because I think it will help me be bolder in this process and I think maybe others of you may need to take a similar coordinated, planned, definite step like this and work hard on your unbelief. I’m reminded of Jarius, the man who wanted Jesus to heal his daughter. To paraphrase, Jesus asks him if he believes that Jesus can heal his daughter. His response feels exactly like where I am at this moment.

“I Believe, but help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

So I step out in day one of this journey, with no idea where my feet will land, but expecting God to do something miraculous in the next 8 months.

If you haven’t seen this article, it’s a very good analysis by a psychiatrist regarding what Parental Alienation Syndrome really is. I think the estimate that it happens in 60% of divorces to some degree actually diminishes the harsh reality in the 10% of the divorces where it is absolutely wrecking the lives of children, however. This is a very thorough analysis with a lot of resources. If you don’t believe PAS exists, or you’re not sure if the Dad you’re talking to is telling the truth about what’s happening to him and his kids, maybe this is a good place to start. This is very, very real.

About this Blog

this blog is written by "Jim". He is a divorcing father of several teenagers. In his research on divorce and discussions with those in church and in friendships he had, he discovered that there was very little help for Fathers going through divorce -- especially those who didn't have the kids. Our culture glorifies the travails of the single parent and they are many. However, there is huge difficulty in being the parent "on the outs." This is a journey through the hills and valleys of that road.